Now, reader, what’s your first thought (1)?
Wait, hold that thought, I should add some context. The above comment wasn’t part of some ill-advised defense of the terrorist. At no prior point during the conversation was there any hint of the Unabomber's eventual mention (TED Talks presents – Famous Teds?). The quote came out of nowehere - one second the conversation was on topic X, the next second it was on the Unabomber.
The reason I bring this up is the same reason the speaker brought it up – he had heard an interesting idea and had simply found it impossible to stop thinking about it. As it was the case that the idea came from the Unabomber’s manifesto, he had no choice but to reference the Unabomber in the process of describing the idea. Interestingly, this led me to a similar kind of place - now I have an idea in my head, and it's simply impossible to stop thinking about it. Luckily, my idea is only tangentially related to the Unabomber – what is the point of reading the Unabomber’s manifesto?
I’ll dust off my old game theory textbook to outline my thinking. If I read the Unabomber’s manifesto, there are only two possible outcomes – I either find something interesting, or I don’t. The latter scenario is fine, it’s like if I became a Manchester United fan, it would simply confirm that just because something is one those 'unknown unknowns' doesn't mean I need to go and know about it. I'd be a rubbish explorer, I'd rather not dig through the trash if leaving the unknown unknown is an option.
However, the former would present a peculiar challenge. Given that I find something interesting, I can now either (a) never mention the interesting idea, effectively pretending like I didn’t read the manifesto at all (and therefore throwing away my entire reading effort) or (b) mention the interesting idea. But if I want to mention the idea, I have to explain the source. I could start like the Harvard grads, you know how if you ask them where they went to school at first they say 'around here' like maybe it was UMass-Boston, but of course ten seconds later they clarify that, yes, it was Hah-vahd, emphasis on the accent to be more 'local'. That's kind of how my explanation would go, initially I would say the interesting idea came from 'a manifesto' but it would all fall apart after a short interval, the can of worms I'd opened through evasiveness eventually being slammed shut minutes later by my dramatic revelation of the source ("OK, fine, it was the Unabomber, the Unabomber's manifesto! Are you HAPPY now?!?").
Sadly, once I say 'Unabomber', it will become impossible for most people to focus on my point until they can do that whole thing where they ask “wait, but you don’t think he’s a good guy, right? You think he was bad, right? I mean, he sent bombs, you know?” and so on. But that's kind of my point. Even if you found an interesting idea, when would you be able to use it in a conversation? Most people, sensing some kind of trap, would simply avoid or shut down further discussion once they found out the source of the idea. It's one thing to learn something from a written work, but I do question the point if you can't make use of the idea in a practical setting. It would be like planning to power a deep-sea submarine with solar panels.
Is there any reason to read the manifesto? I thought about it and came up with some possibilities. First, I concede that the moment the manifesto came out might have been the appropriate time to read it. This is limited by time, though, and I think far too much of it has passed to make it an appropriate reason today. The suggestion that a modern reader would find something interesting in it now feels flawed. If something in the manifesto was worth reading, wouldn't I already have heard it by now, secondhand?
I suppose for some people the experience matters, that certain curiosities cannot be satisfied by simply watching Criminal Minds reruns on Ion television, so for these people the act of reading it would matter from the perspective of using firsthand material as a step toward understanding. There is some value in reading the thinking from someone whose destiny has already been revealed. In the case of someone so obviously horrible as the Unabomber, I bet it’s even educational if you can find yourself agreeing from time to time with some of the ideas. This way, you won’t become an instant sucker the second you hear someone say a thing or two you might agree with – think of it like practice for the big game. As someone with a self-described BS allergy, I can reliably report that finding common ground with the stooges, lunatics, and evildoers of society is like getting a regular booster shot - you become immune to BS when it arrives without the answer key.
The opposite consideration matters, though perhaps not as much – we should have some tools to know how to handle the outrageous things that come from the otherwise sane, reliable, or trustworthy people in our lives. Disagreement tends to be a question of degree and I think it becomes easier over time to tolerate other views if you have the skills to parse out the magnitude of the difference. My thought is that reading something like the Unabomber’s manifesto is good preparation for getting the right sense of degree in the face of a disagreement – OK, I don't feel the same way here, but this is nothing like I felt when the Unabomber was prattling on that every human problem was waiting for a solution built on principles and logic.
The possible benefits aside, however, I don’t think there is a good argument for reading this today. I’m fairly certain that his work is only being read in the context of his crimes and not on the strength of the ideas. The fact is that good writers can create context within their work, using pen and paper to change the world, and we shouldn't talk about the scribbles from a terrorist in any way that equates it with writing.
Footnotes
1. Source, thoughts, and a lazy recommendation
An important clarification, the quote is from Chuck Klosterman on his podcast Music Exists. You can find the podcast on Spotify, and the specific quote from the 49-minute mark. I only lightly recommend the show – music is really challenging to talk about (unless it’s specific to something you already know and, in many cases, like).
